As the disasters that befell Salem were caused by the young girls ' hysteria of witchcraft, some of Miller 's critics perceived Abigail and her squad of followers as maleficent and vindictive driven by anger, cruelty and personal interests. Elizabeth Frayn interprets the hostility of the girls as a natural reaction to the negative view they receive in their society. For instance, Abigail is always regarded as a malicious girl who seeks to supplant Elizabeth as Proctor 's wife, and she is further motivated by Proctor 's threat to expose their affair if she does not clear his wife 's name ( Frayn 95). The girls are controlled by a fanatic society. Like Abigail, each of those girls has her own cause to be angry and simulate to kill her victims.
The girls blamed many people of the town of being witches and caused conflict all over the village. People in the village had power by influencing others to lie in order not to receive the consequences of witchcraft. Abigail shows power in the play by influencing the girls and what to say and do. She threatened all the girls she will hurt them if they open their mouth and say the truth. Abigail threatens, “Let either one of you breathe a word, or the edge of the other thing and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will being a pointy reckoning that will shutter you.”(Act 1).
The spell turned a 17 years old Sophie into a 90 years old woman. The magical event she experienced is a result of her condition: the unluckiest daughter of the Hatter family. Besides of the effect of the Land of Ingary’s magic, the event also happens because of the intrusion of the witch who curses Sophie. Nikolajeva (2002) believes magical event happens because there is active participation of magical character. The intervention of the witch of the waste to Sophie’s condition then forces Sophie to bravely take a further action: to find a way to break the curse; the thing she never has any thought of before.
Richard Godbeer introduced “the salem witch hunt” in which he addresses various tragic dialogues occurring in Salem during the early modern period. During the course of Puritans, many followed strictly through the concept of catholic religious beliefs leading to apprehension in contact of compulsive behaviour influencing supernatural assumptions. Commonly the society detected this manifestation as witchcraft, overbearing that most poor, widowed and oddly conducted women were generally associated with demonic figures. During the trails mentioned in the authors book, we can sense a shift of emotion overbearing the figure being held in front of the jury and also to the people witnessing this horrific perturbation since most of women at the time,
The Crucible still remains in society today because of the hysteria of Salem witch trials.The main character in this play is Abigail Williams, Abigail is very manipulative and wants everything to go her way. She is the main character and causes trouble everywhere she goes. The Salem Witch Trials is about hearings and prosecutions of people who were accused of witchcraft. In The Crucible Abigail is a no good villain. Abigail first commits adultery with Elizabeth Proctor’s husband John Proctor.
Female power in Macbeth The three witches Apart from Lady Macbeth, who is the most relevant character related to gender and power issues, the three witches are instrumental in starting the action that leads to so much tragedy. In the manner of Lady Macbeth, they try to break gender barriers, and they are represented as evil for two reasons. On the one hand, when Christianity was established witches were associated with the devil. On the other hand, Shakespeare wrote Macbeth with King James I in mind, and he wrote a book on wizardry. Many of the ideas that the king expressed to the public were included in Macbeth, such as predicting the future.
During this time, there were many people involved that greatly influenced the Salem Witch Trials. Two of the most influential were two young girls who sparked the trials by accusing local witches of using witchcraft on them. The two girls were cousins and their names were Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. According to Jeffrey Russell in A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans, “Two small girls aged nine and eleven began experimenting with divination in a half-serious attempt to discover who their future husbands would be. As often happens with people who play with magic, the children became terrified and began to exhibit nervous symptoms, thrashing about and assuming odd postures” (114) Apparently, they were playing around and it quickly turned into something much more serious.
“She is the consummate seductress; the witchcraft hysteria in the play originates in her carnal lust for Proctor” (Schissel 3). Abigail is the core of “The Crucible”, everything originates in her desire for Proctor, and the way she achieves her goals. “Abigail is the most complex of the girls in the town who cry out against their elders. Both clever and cunning, her intense cynicism toward the so called respectability of the town is partly supported in the way that we see them act” (Abbotson 1). She has so many layers to her character that we as readers can explore.
In the Salem Witch first instance of witchery is Betty/Elizabeth Parris, along with Abigail Williams when they started to scream and giggle uncontrollably, along with delusions, vomiting, muscle spasms, screaming, and writhing. William Griggs, a physician, diagnosed witchcraftery to the women. Soon, fueled by resentment and paranoia, more and more women were accused of being witches, while the community and system of justice piled up. The Trials had lasted from 1692 to 1693. Some women acted peculiar because of a fungus called “Ergot” that grew on cereals and wheat.
As Hale gets to know the people of Salem who are now accused he begins to question the trials and the presence of witchcraft itself. After Elizabeth Proctor, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey, all highly respected women of the village, are condemned Hale finally comes to his senses about the girls when he says: “I may shut my conscience to it no more-private vengeance is working through this testimony”(1208). Hale comes to the realization that the girls are using the cry of witchcraft to punish whoever they please in the town. He can no longer believe these honest Christian people are conjuring with the devil just based on the accusation of young girls and no real proof. Hale then goes against his practice to convince the accused to confess to save to their lives: Hale goes to Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey and begs them to confess to witchcraft even though he knows they are not guilty of it.